Plastic Will Doom Us All - Microplastics found in every human testicle in study

[Aiken_Drumn]

Microplastics found in every human testicle in study

Scientists say discovery may be linked to decades-long decline in sperm counts in men around the world

www.theguardian.com

Microplastics have been found in human testicles, with researchers saying the discovery might be linked to declining sperm counts in men.

The scientists tested 23 human testes, as well as 47 testes from pet dogs. They found microplastic pollution in every sample. The human testicles had been preserved and so their sperm count could not be measured. However, the sperm count in the dogs’ testes could be assessed and was lower in samples with higher contamination with PVC. The study demonstrates a correlation but further research is needed to prove microplastics cause sperm counts to fall. Sperm counts in men have been falling for decades, with chemical pollution such as pesticides implicated by many studies. Microplastics have also recently been discovered in human blood, placentas and breast milk, indicating widespread contamination of people’s bodies. The impact on health is as yet unknown but microplastics have been shown to cause damage to human cells in the laboratory. Vast amounts of plastic waste are dumped in the environment and microplastics have polluted the entire planet, from the summit of Mount Everest to the deepest oceans. People are known to consume the tiny particles via food and water as well as breathing them in.


The particles could lodge in tissue and cause inflammation, as air pollution particles do, or chemicals in the plastics could cause harm. In March, doctors warned of potentially life-threatening effects after finding a substantially raised risk of stroke, heart attack and earlier death in people whose blood vessels were contaminated with microscopic plastics. “At the beginning, I doubted whether microplastics could penetrate the reproductive system,” said Prof Xiaozhong Yu, at the University of New Mexico in the US. “When I first received the results for dogs I was surprised. I was even more surprised when I received the results for humans.” The testes analysed were obtained from postmortems in 2016, with the men ranging in age from 16 to 88 when they died. “The impact on the younger generation might be more concerning” now that there is more plastic than ever in the environment, Yu said. The study, published in the journal Toxicological Sciences, involved dissolving the tissue samples and then analysing the plastic that remained. The dogs’ testes were obtained from veterinary practices that conducted neutering operations.


The human testicles had a plastic concentration almost three times higher than that found in the dog testes: 330 micrograms per gram of tissue compared with 123 micrograms. Polyethylene, used in plastic bags and bottles, was the most common microplastic found, followed by PVC.
“PVC can release a lot of chemicals that interfere with spermatogenesis and it contains chemicals that cause endocrine disruption,” Yu said. The human testes had been routinely collected by the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator and were available following a seven-year storage requirement after which the samples are usually discarded.

A smaller study in China in 2023 also found microplastics in six human testes and 30 semen samples. Recent studies in mice have reported that microplastics reduced sperm count and caused abnormalities and hormone disruptions.

Will Plastic Doom us all?

 

[Birdjaguar]

If it is the cause of reduced fertility/sperm count among men, then...

It may become the male contraceptive of "choice"!
Unless we have a way to remove it, oh well....
I wonder to what degree will it affect population growth.

 

[thetrooper]

From balls of steel to testicles of microplastics. That’s a serious downgrade.

 

[Core Imposter]

And so, we can see the benefits of a couple hundred years of scientific advancement. The SETI folks talk about the Great Filter which is a hypothesis that the reason we can't find advanced civilizations in the universe it that there is some unknown factor that terminates them before they can become multiplanetary. Well. we pretty much make everything out of plastic, so I guess this is as good a speculation as any I have read about. But I subscribe to other thoughts on the matter.

 

[Samson]

Microplastics are everywhere and they are likely having a big effect on us. Here are some indications they effect some of the biggest killers:

It has all sorts of interactions with cancer. Google scholar gives more hits than one could read in a lifetime.

This nature review describes them in other disease:

A recent report described a potential link between Microplastics and nanoplastics (MNPs) present in blood vessels and cardiovascular disease. In samples of atherosclerotic plaques that had been surgically excised from the carotid arteries of 304 people, plastic was detected in plaques from approximately half of this cohort, with polyethylene in 150 of the samples and polyvinyl chloride in 31 of them. Using electron microscopy, the researchers found jagged-edged particles, identified as MNPs, in the plaques. Deposition of plastic in the plaques was strongly associated with the development of subsequent cardiovascular disease: over the course of 34 months, people with evidence of MNPs in their plaques had a 4.5-fold higher risk of a composite endpoint of nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke or death from any cause, relative to the risk for those without such evidence.

In another study focusing on a potential link between microplastics and inflammatory bowel disease, 15 types of microplastics were detected in human feces. The concentration of fecal microplastics was higher in people with inflammatory bowel disease than in healthy people, and the level of fecal microplastics correlated with the severity of the disease.

And we start kids young:

Polypropylene-based products are commonly used for food preparation and storage, but their capacity to release microplastics is poorly understood. We investigated the potential exposure of infants to microplastics from consuming formula prepared in polypropylene (PP) infant feeding bottles (IFBs). Here, we show that PP IFBs release microplastics with values as high as 16,200,000 particles per litre. Scenario studies showed that PP IFB sterilization and exposure to high-temperature water significantly increase microplastic release.

 

[Narz]

Unfortunately profit for industry and the promise of convenience is put above human health.

Really sad. I do what I can. I don't drink from plastic. I see my daughter chewing plastic toys and I stop her but even with a perfect lifestyle (which mine is far from) contamination is inevitable in the modern world.

Reproductive health in freefall with no signs of recovery.

 

[Narz]

If it is the cause of reduced fertility/sperm count among men, then...

It may become the male contraceptive of "choice"!

Miscarriages, birth defects, low testosterone... I don't think anyone would choose that method

 

[Gori the Grey]

Ken was out ahead of us all.

 

[Crezth]

children of men prequel

 

[Manfred Belheim]

Something a little strange about there being an odd number of testicles in each study...

 

[Gori the Grey]

Ah, you were this close Manfred:

Something a little odd about the number of testicles in each study.

 

[Core Imposter]

One of my two "must watches" is Sabine Hossenfelder. I am going to see if she has made a video about this.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Sabine Hossenfelder

"Have you ever considered the possibility of transferring your consciousness into a computer? Sabine Hossenfelder, a German theoretical physicist, believes that this may one day be possible.

According to Hossenfelder, the fundamental laws of physics as described in the Standard Model of particle physics can explain everything in the Universe, including human consciousness. She suggests that we are simply a collection of elementary particles, but it is the arrangement of these particles that gives us our unique qualities and abilities.

Therefore, it may be possible to capture and transfer all the information about the arrangement of particles in our body in order to transfer our consciousness into a computer. So, could we one day upload our consciousness and exist within a machine? It’s an intriguing possibility."

Ask a physicist: Do humans have souls?

Do humans have souls, or are we just particles? Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder explains.

bigthink.com

 

[Farm Boy]

We'll invent doppelgangers yet.

 

[Ordnael]

Something a little strange about there being an odd number of testicles in each study...

I wonder how many of the studied testies belong the new age rainbow women?

 

[Core Imposter]

"Have you ever considered the possibility of transferring your consciousness into a computer? Sabine Hossenfelder, a German theoretical physicist, believes that this may one day be possible.

According to Hossenfelder, the fundamental laws of physics as described in the Standard Model of particle physics can explain everything in the Universe, including human consciousness. She suggests that we are simply a collection of elementary particles, but it is the arrangement of these particles that gives us our unique qualities and abilities.

Therefore, it may be possible to capture and transfer all the information about the arrangement of particles in our body in order to transfer our consciousness into a computer. So, could we one day upload our consciousness and exist within a machine? It’s an intriguing possibility."

Ask a physicist: Do humans have souls?

Do humans have souls, or are we just particles? Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder explains.

bigthink.com

Science can discover the ways that God's operation works. If we could transfer ourselves into a computer, theoretically, then surely we could theoretically recreate ourselves in the flesh. Then we would have the power of resurrection. Which God has already demonstrated many times and people scoff at.

 

[Plains-Cow]

I, for one, welcome our new Lego children.

 

[Comrade Ceasefire]

An excellent lecture on microplastics. Apologies if I've linked to it before.
The good news is that human bodies have some excellent barriers so that microplastics don't always do as much harm as they could.
(The blood brain barrier is what makes it difficult to get drugs to the right place in the brain. Similarly with some other organs.)
The bad news is the accelerating amount of plastic produced in the world.